BT to 'sunset' Apache CloudStack cloud, customer demand went AWOL

We don't want to be an IaaS about it, but...

BT’s Cloud of Clouds (CoC) field of vision is about to narrow. Its open-source cloud software platform, based on Apache CloudStack, will be "quietly withdrawn", The Reg can confirm.

The CoC strategy launched in 2015 contained a cloud services catalogue that included BT's own cloud infrastructure platform and has since expanded to include private cloud management and public clouds from the likes of AWS and Azure.

However, demand for the open source platform hasn't matched expectations, sources told us. One person close to BT said the telco was about to "sunset" the service as it has "basically never made money".

El Reg understands BT had LTE plans for its own BT Cloud, but that is being “quietly withdrawn”. We asked the telco what gives and received a rather wonderful example of corporate speak.

A spokesman told us: "We continually review our strategy and operations. As part of that process, we focus our efforts on areas where we see the strongest customer demand and as the same time secure the best return on investments."

So that's it for now, at least. BT was keen to tell us it is still investing in "supporting our customers' hybrid cloud approaches" with a swelling list of vendors including AWS, IBM, Microsoft and Google. It is also still putting cash into cloud management services.

Apache CloudStack only released LTS Maintenance version 4.11.2.0 last month, containing more than 70 fixes on the prior version, with branches supported for 20 months. ®